Causes of Swimming Pool Injuries and Drowning

Were You or a Loved One Injured at a Swimming Pool? Call Us Today

While you may be considering the pleasant feeling of cool water on your skin during a hot day, a swimming pool can be a big liability for any homeowner. Summer slips around the pool and drownings can result in injuries ranging from mild to fatal. Any good personal injury lawyer in Los Angeles will reveal multiple causes for swimming pool injuries and drownings each year.

Causes Of Swimming Pool Injuries

If you take a second to think about your pool and the injuries that can happen, it can get quite scary. While you may do your best to prevent injuries, sometimes they happen anyway. Here are the most common causes of swimming pool injuries that you and your LA swimming pool injury lawyer will likely face:

Drain Entrapment
Any Los Angeles swimming injury attorney can tell you that the drain of your pool can create a powerful level of suction. This can cause injuries, especially to younger children who don't have the strength to avoid the powerful force or pull. Common body parts like legs, arms, hair and even a swimming suit can get stuck in the drain. It can lead to entrapment and drowning of the individual. That's why it's so important to have a safe drain cover installed on your pool drain.

Overcrowding
Your swimming pool accident attorney knows that having a pool attracts a lot of attention. Before you know it, all the neighborhood kids are splashing around in your pool. This can cause overcrowding of the area and make it difficult for you to tell if there are children who are drowning. Before you realize what is happening, it could be too late to rescue them.

Faulty Fences or Gates
As a homeowner, having a fence or gate around their swimming pool is essential. This keeps unwanted guests and pests out of your pool. It can also help to lower your homeowner's insurance rate. But, when your fence or gate is not functioning correctly, this can create mayhem. It puts you at risk of getting sued should a child enter through an improperly-working gate.

Missing Depth Markers
If you have an underground pool, it likely is deep at parts. Understanding the depth at each part of the pool is a necessity. This way, everyone can access the pool and use portions of it that they're comfortable swimming in. If your depth markers are missing or highly faded, pool users may find themselves in too deep of water to handle. Your swimming pool injury lawyer in Los Angeles will highly advise that you check your depth markers regularly and replace them as soon as they're no longer clearly visible to avoid a lawsuit.

Pools Not Installed to Code Requirements
Any Los Angeles swimming pool injury lawyer can reveal the fact that swimming pools constructed at residential properties must be designed up to the specs of local building codes. These codes help ensure a pool isn't designed with hazardous areas that can cause injuries or fatalities to swimmers. You should talk with your pool designer about making sure you meet code requirements before constructing your new pool. This will save you a big liability headache later down the road if there is an incident at your home pool.

Poorly Lit Pools
While daylight lasts longer during warm summer days, it's very easy to find yourself and others still in the pool as the hours of darkness settle in. Installing lighting around your pool can help swimmers navigate the outer area and walkways of your pool safely. When you have poorly lit areas around your pool or you don't have lights at all, this could wreak havoc on the safety of you and your fellow swimmers. It's very easy to trip over a filter that pops up or on a hidden object lying on the side of the pool.

Murky Water
Chlorine is used in all public pools to keep the water safe for use and to keep it clean for the safety of users. If you notice that your residential pool has taken on a murky tint, then you need to remedy the problem before you allow swimmers in it. Murky water can make it difficult for swimmers to navigate around. It can also make it nearly impossible for those on safety duty to see people having issues, such as drowning.

Inattentive Lifeguards
An inattentive lifeguard is one complication that you may not want to think about at a public swimming pool. However, this does happen. It's very easy for any lifeguard or water watcher to get distracted on duty for minutes at a time. But it only takes a few seconds for drowning or injury to occur to a patron. The same goes for residential swimming pools. As an adult, you'll need to pay close attention to the children that use your pool. It only takes one trip into the house for a child to get injured or drown in your pool.

Regardless of whether you're hanging out at your own backyard swimming pool or headed off to the public pool, you need to be knowledgeable about safety measures to prevent injuries and drownings. No one wants to experience one of these terrifying instances when it could've been easily avoided. At Gutierrez Law, we've helped clients through the most complex swimming pool accident cases. If you have questions about potential risks or filing a lawsuit, give us a call!